Validation SOPs › Product-Market Fit
Stage 4 of 9
Product-Market Fit SOPs
Product-market fit is the point where a defined group of customers uses your product, keeps using it and would be upset to lose it. Marc Andreessen described it as being in a good market with a product that satisfies that market. You can't feel your way there; you measure it. The 10 SOPs below give you the numbers: the Sean Ellis test with its 40% "very disappointed" benchmark, retention cohorts that flatten instead of falling to zero, and the AARRR framework to see where users leak out of your funnel.
All 10 product-market fit SOPs
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Sean Ellis Test SOP
A Sean Ellis test SOP for founders: who to survey, the four-question form, how to segment answers and what to do above or below the 40% line.
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NPS Survey SOP
An NPS survey SOP for startups: the exact question, how to calculate Net Promoter Score, how many answers you need and how to act on detractor comments.
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Customer Retention Analysis SOP
A customer retention analysis SOP for founders: define an active user, build cohort tables, read retention curves and spot the flattening that signals fit.
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AARRR Metrics Framework SOP
An AARRR metrics framework SOP for founders: define one event per pirate metric stage, build a weekly funnel dashboard and find the stage to fix first.
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Product Usage Analysis SOP
A product usage analysis SOP for founders: track feature use, build a power user curve and find the early action that predicts which users stay.
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Customer Success Metrics SOP
A customer success metrics SOP for B2B founders: define each customer's desired outcome, measure time to value and build a health score that predicts churn.
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Customer Advisory Board SOP
A customer advisory board SOP for founders: who to invite, a charter and meeting agenda to copy, and how to turn board sessions into tested product decisions.
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Market Expansion Testing SOP
A market expansion testing SOP for startups: choose an adjacent segment, run a small pilot and compare its fit numbers with your home market before you commit.
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Growth Experiment SOP
A growth experiment SOP for founders: write a testable hypothesis, rank ideas with ICE, size the test for your traffic and log every result in one place.
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Customer Referral Analysis SOP
A customer referral analysis SOP for founders: track where new customers come from, measure real word of mouth and decide if a referral programme is worth it.
Other validation stages
- Customer Discovery
Find out who has the problem and how they live with it today.
- Problem Validation
Prove the problem is frequent, painful and worth paying to fix.
- Solution Validation
Test whether your proposed solution gets real commitment.
- Business Model Validation
Check that the money side works: pricing, acquisition cost and margins.
- Technical Validation
Make sure you can build it, run it and keep it secure.
- Financial Validation
Turn the idea into numbers that survive scrutiny.
- Competition Analysis
Know who else solves the problem and where you can win.
- Go-to-Market Validation
Test the channels, message and sales process before launch day.